Late Entry - Nano-Punk

[DarthMath42]

Sorry for jumping in late - I've had trouble getting registered.

The setting I want to create is intended to combine some elements of V for Vendetta, the recent Bionic Woman series, and and the old Paranoia game's feel to generate a really different look at cyberpunk.

Rather than focus on the big and obvious tech, my world will be more "under the skin". In the 21st century all the major governments went bankrupt trying to stave off the myriad disasters associated with climate change. No one could provide the health care and food needed to keep their populations alive and thriving. Seeing a chance to intervene, some of the larger corporations positioned themselves to introduce new tech - the governments would all agree to bypass the normal rules and requirements for testing, etc. if only the corporations could save us all. And they did. But now, they own us.

They've saved us basically through injecting custom swarms of nanobots into our bodies. These can be programmed to repair damage, fight disease, fight ageing, etc. But they have a downside. First, since they are passed to children through the umbilical cord, they are inherited. This means that they are INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE. And since no one can afford these costs, the corporations - who got around all the regulations on new tech and monopolies and so forth - have added a bonus feature to the swarms that takes advantage of all the ubiquitous computing and Wi-Fi in the world. Every once in a while, the corporate computers can gain some measure of control over the hosts. This control can be benign - like getting you to slip lots of ads for products into every-day conversation (think Truman Show here). Or more overt - like coordinating a group of people to knock over another corporation's operations.

To make the game really exciting, I plan to use Fudge and have each player control TWO entities in the game. One is a standard PC - with nanotech enhancements and committments. To really make the game different, though, the other entity each player controls is one of the corporations, which will be generated using Aspects from FATE that will allow them to spend an asset to try and control another PC through the Fate mechanism (giving them suggested courses of action, etc.)

Driving the action will be the recent appearance of Keeton. This mysterious figure is all over the web and is interfering in every corporations' business. No one knows (except the GM - who ain't telling) whether Keeton is an individual with serious tech mojo, a group working to resist the control of the corporations, a corporation using a disguise, a former country trying to regain control, or even an AI-evolved from the nanobots. What we do know is that the more tech you have the easier it is for Keeton and the corporations to control you.

Big brother - and his dark, mysterious cousin - are watching.

[SheikhJahbooty]

Not since the Myth of Self adventure ark for Over the Edge have I seen a game idea as subversive as this one.

To make it really mind warping, make Keaton an open source ad-ware that lets the PCs hack each other's heads.

You start to get into questions like, "What is free will? Social conflicts can get my character to do stuff just like using Keaton. What makes social conflicts fair? What makes using Keaton cheating? If my character lost 5 years of social conflicts to his parents, as a child, is it fair to say he never had free will? Have I ever had it?"

Oh, and make sure the only difference between the poor and the rich, in terms of nanotech, is that rich people have better spam and virus protection, but because rich people are often vastly less savvy about how stuff works, they are just as vulnerable in many ways. "Don't eat that! Don't they teach you anything in rich boy school? It will crash your anti-virus software and turn you into the Peter Lorry character from Casablanca."

[DarthMath42]

I forgot one of the essential elements of the setting.

Now that every individual on the planet has their body riddled with various heavy metals and proprietary technology, disposal of dead bodies is... more difficult. Burial is out; we now recycle everything - or so we've been told.

In actual fact, the 'bot swarms can be used to take control of and effectively animate corpses. Thus, the dead have now literally become corporate zombies, serving as menial labor in secret. Eventually, the bodies decay too much to be useable, but in the meantime, we're putting the CORP in corpse. Once you're really too far gone, the organic bits are recycled.

[Logan Howard]

Creepy-cool!

I really like your ideas. Would a campaign play out like a giant game of corporate Risk? It seems like players would want to drive out all non-player corps and team up from time to time in order to take down a big rival. If I were to play in this world, I would want to get into the Keeton element in a big way and explore alternative ways to use the technology.

[MrNod]

Wow fantastic ideas! Registered on the forums just to tell you that

[SheikhJahbooty]

DarthMath, if you haven't seen Metropia, you really should. I just saw it.

[DarthMath42]

Thanks for all the nice ideas and positive reinforcement. The project kinda stalled for a while, but it's got legs and is dusting itself off and moving forward.

I've simplified some of my earlier mechanics to keep it from being too much stuff to track - after all, playing two "characters" at once it hard enough!

I'm still not sure how much detail I want to give on some things - like the lists of equipment and so forth - I might just stick with some suggested aspects that could be used to build equipment and leave it at that.

But I'm on track to submit what will be a complete - if blandly presented - entry.

I just checked out the trailer for Metropia - wow, the parallels are interesting. I really like the idea of body hair acting as an antenna & might have to work that in. Maybe the extremists (those who reject the tech) are all-over body-bald in an effort to separate themselves and not be used.

I've also realized that this setting allows for slightly different variations on the game. We've got the cyberpunk approach, and the zombies give us a horror option, but the 'tech can also give one "superpowers" without going too crazy.